What to write?

The most interesting side note of this daily writing challenge is the challenge of not just idea generation, but good idea generation.

There comes a bad feeling midday when I know I need to publish something but I have nothing to say. Or I have something to say, but even worse, it’s no good. My process has been to go through my Evernote, my twitter bookmarks, notes on my phone. But eventually I'll hit the end of the road.

But there is one more solution, and that is just writing….

Just by starting ideas will flow and new ideas will sprout out of them and before you know it, there’s something there. I bet this can be extended further out to all other creative pursuits: what to paint, what project to start, where to invest. So much of what you end up doing is tweaking, learning, and pivoting your way into the final solution anyhow. There's endless stories on companies pivoting to a completely different idea after the first failed.

The ultimate solution lies somewhere between a tradeoff between how much you've got planned versus how much you can potentially figure out along the way. Seth Godin, the prolific creator and daily blogger, talks about this often, here is a great reminder of the best time to start.

So if you get too stuck, try just starting.